Improving the Care Seeking Behaviour Toward Cervical Cancer Screening Participation Among Gwafan Community Women, North- Central, Nigeria

Abstract Introduction: Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women globally and the second in low-Middle income countries, its screening rate is yet to reach 70% WHO target. Most interventions that proved effective in improving screening participation in some communities did not achieve the desired behavioural outcome in some settings. Aim: This study aimed at evaluating the care seeking behaviour interventions on cervical cancer screening participation. Method: A Pragmatic Multiphase Mixed Methods Design was adopted for this study and three phases of Human Centered Design process was used for data collection. Thematic analysis was used for qualitative data while SPSS for the quantitative data analysis. Results: Findings indicate that most (57.4%) participants were within 30–65 years, most (81.0%) were extremely poor with annual income < 284,700.00 Naira. Before intervention, most (77.4%) were afraid of exposing their private parts, 75.9% were afraid of being diagnosed with cervical cancer; 52.1% felt the procedure was embarrassing, 53.2% felt the procedure was painful; 11.2% had ever screened; majority (88.8%) said involving husband, (86.5%) welcoming attitude of care provider are among facilitators for screening. Screening participation improved from 11.2% preintervention to 29.7% postintervention (average mean screening score from 1.89 ± 0.316 to 1.7000 ± 0.458), all participants who screened postintervention said the procedure was not embarrassing, painful, and were not afraid of procedure and screening room. In conclusion, screening habit in the community was low preintervention as this may result from social norms, affect, utility, influence of sociodemographic variables and lack of facilitating conditions. Care-seeking behaviour interventions has significantly increased screening participation.